1. Field
The present invention relates to vehicle suspension systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Military vehicles benefit from very high levels of platform stability and increased cross-country speed, which requires advanced suspension systems to adequately isolate the vehicle body, payload and crew from terrain irregularities. Furthermore, modern armies increasingly base their combat organizations and tactics around families of vehicles that maximize common subsystems but are configured for specialized payloads or missions such as direct fire anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft weapons, indirect fire mortars and artillery, ammunition transport, combat re-supply transport, infantry transport, and battlefield command and control. The purpose of using families of similar vehicles for divergent missions is to dramatically reduce research, development and acquisition costs.
However, it is recognized that cross-country mobility, speed, and chassis stability needs for the various mission specific payloads can be very different and the cost and criticality of the various payloads can also be very different. Consequently, acceptable costs for suspension system solutions to provide platform/payload stability also varies considerably.